Golden Rivers

A good starting point for white pizza is the classic style you’ll find in New York City. Totonno’s with garlic, mozz, ricotta, Parmigiano, and olive oil always comes to mind. You could put those things on a pizza and it will taste good, but it will be a blanket of white— little textural variance, cheesy, and visually one-note. The thing to shoot for is what I call “golden rivers.” The concept is to create islands of mozzarella and ricotta with golden rivers that form between them. The cheese melts and patches reach for each other but don’t meet because pieces started far enough away. You get channels between the cheese, the olive oil and Parmigiano turn golden, and garlic is trapped underneath. It’s spectacular. If the pieces are too far apart, that space between will dry and create big black bubbles. It’s a fine line. Depending on the mozzarella size and oven temperature, the mozzarella will melt differently. The key is that before they completely melt into each other, the pizza is finished cooking and that space between them will be filled with the parm and the olive oil and create golden rivers running through islands of mozzarella.